COMMENTARY No. 61

a CANADIAN
SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE publication

Far from a Sure Thing: Prospects for Democracy In Latin America

September 1995

Unclassified

Editors Note:

Democracy is not nearly as hardy a plant as might be imagined: it
withers quickly where governments fail to improve the economic conditions of the
majority, or where military leaders threaten to vie for power, or where the
rewards of corruption replace normal, rational commerce. And in certain Latin
American countries, for example, where democracy has only recently taken hold,
a change in government can sometimes also presage a change in democracy's
deeper roots: the rule of law, human rights, the independence of the judiciary,
public trust in the police and military.

The prospects for the long-term growth of democracy in Latin America is
the principal concern of the author of the month's COMMENTARY. Mr. H.P.
Klepak is Director of Security Programmes at the Canadian Foundation for the
Americas, and Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada.

Disclaimer: Publication of an article in the COMMENTARY
series does not imply CSIS authentication of the information nor CSIS
endorsement of the author's views.

In no part of the world is the word democracy more part of the political
discourse than in Latin America. During the crises and wars of independence in
the early 19th century, despite the widespread reluctance of élites on
the subject, Simon Bolivar and other libertadores called for reform of
the old colonial system with a view to establishing democratic forms and
substance.

How is it, then, that nearly two centuries later, democracy in one form or
another is only now the dominant political system in the region? And how solidly
is it anchored at the moment? Finally, what are its long-term prospects?

Background

It is important to remember, as the French author Marcel Niedergang has put
it, that there is not one Latin America; there are twenty Latin Americas. While
the Iberian heritage is common to most of the region, French-speaking Haiti is
also a nation of Latin America. And the Iberian tradition reflects the past not
only of Spain but the very different formative experience of Portugal. Brazil
may be the only Portuguese country in Latin America, but it represents about
one-third of its population and roughly half the continent of South America.

Latin America was settled by Spain and Portugal, but in much of the region
the conquistadores discovered highly sophisticated and populous civilizations.
In others they found vast empty spaces of little interest to these gold-hungry,
labour-seeking adventurers. And while in the Andes, Central America and Mexico,
mestizo societies emerged from the mixing of these societies, in Brazil and the
Caribbean, black slaves had more of an impact on the racial mélange which
was to develop. Finally, in the Southern Cone of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay,
few indigenous peoples were found, and the impact of white settlement from
Europe made for ethnic mixes where whites dominated completely. Not that whites
did not dominate in the rest of Latin America as well. They did, and often do,
control politics, economics and the social system, and racial issues are rarely
far from the surface in most of the region.

The early experience with the democratic ideal

It would be difficult to imagine countries with less likelihood of quickly
establishing democracies than those of Latin America at independence. The long
and bloody wars of secession from the Spanish Empire, very much civil wars in
societies where royalism was strong, shattered the structures of the old
colonial régime but also created a class of military leaders whose
avarice and separatist tendencies were to prove hard to control.

In Spanish America, the empire had functioned as a series of separate
monarchies. While the monarch was absolute in many senses, he ope-rated within
a complex matrix of special relationships, local privileges and exceptions to
rules which, while bewildering to the historian, worked well in the New World.
However these relationships might favour local autonomy, such special treatment
was not to affect the social order and hierarchy or suggest in any way
individual (or what we would term today human) rights. With few exceptions,
persons were born into a social class and racial group which determined where
they would die as well. Social mobility was rare. Religious authorities joined
with the Crown in ensuring that an organic society survived and passed on its
values to future generations; democracy was most assuredly not one of those
values.

The vast conflicts that shook the Spanish Empire in the early 18th century
were often far from democratic, even if some leaders clearly had aspirations in
that direction. It must be said, indeed, that in very many cases the Spanish
American revolutions were more about attempts by the local aristocracies to
maintain privileges and control than they were in any sense revolts in favour of
local reform to widen political participation or improve the social condition of
the masses. Even Bolivar himself was far from certain about the potential for
progress with democracy, which in many Latin American minds was associated with
anarchy and mob rule.

The only change to this was the arrival en masse of soldiers as
members of the new élites born of the revolutions. The upheavals of
nearly 20 years of war meant that there were many generals with political
ambitions and these, usually in alliance with sectors of the aristocracy, were
able to keep any tendencies to democracy well in check.

The post-independence régimes

The states soon began to organize themselves  that is, to break up
into a series of separate entities  despite the entreaties of Bolivar, who
argued that such a patchwork of small states would be easy prey to wars among
its members and to the aggression of European powers and the United States.
Local strongmen began the long and costly caudillo tradition, whereby
charismatic and often militarily capable leaders came to dominate their
societies intra-élite squabbling for power.

Meanwhile, the highly legalistic traditions of Iberian rule remained, and
elaborate written constitutions, enshrining all manner of ideals copied directly
from the latest European and United States political thought, co-existed with
absolute disregard for even the most basic human rights such as the due process
of law. Indeed, élite jockeying for naked power, often violent in the
extreme, was almost always cloaked in ideological finery of the liberal and
conservative kinds.

The troubled thirties

The breakdown of the international division of labour with the Great
Depression of 1929 had serious consequences for the development of democracy in
the region. Rightist authoritarian governments were established in many
countries after populist or leftist forces proved unable to guide them through
the maelstrom of troubles occasioned by the collapse of foreign trade and the
dislocation of domestic economies.

Fledgling trade unions and other grass roots organizations were often seen
as subversive, as were the political parties which tried to represent them.
Social unrest was met with fierce, sometimes savage, repression in Central
America, Mexico, the island republics, parts of the Andes, in Brazil and in the
Southern Cone.

World War II

When war came and most economies experienced boom times again, the calls for
democracy grew in frequency and volume. The war for democracy was taken
seriously by reformers, especially student movements, in much of the region.
And these forces soon began to press forcefully for change even in some of the
most anti-democratic societies of Latin America. The ever-increasing role of the
United States in the hemisphere also counted here, as Washington made clear its
preference for democracies over dictatorships in the struggle against fascism.
A number of authoritarian régimes were removed during and immediately
after the war in what was thought to be a permanent trend to democracy. Progress
was in the air.

The coming of the cold war

The cold war was to end most of that hope. The inter-American system,
reinforced during the war, became much more permanent and all-pervasive in the
late 1940s as the Rio Pact and the Organization of American States spelled out a
security system for the hemisphere, wherein American leadership was taken as a
given. Washington's worldwide competition with the Soviet Union took priority,
and it soon became evident that support would be forthcoming for virtually any régime
as long as it declared itself anti-communist.

The results of this policy in Latin America were not long in coming,
especially as the Guatemalan crisis of 1954 was followed by the arrival of the
cold war in the region, with the triumph of the radically reforming (and
eventually pro-Soviet) government of Fidel Castro in Cuba in 1959. While Cuba
attempted desperately to break out of its isolation in the US-dominated Americas
through a policy of blatant 'export of revolution', Washington shored up
repressive régimes through economic and military aid aimed at ending any
chance of Castro-style revolutions. The big losers in all this were moderate
pro-democracy reformers who saw their objectives considered irrelevant by the
big players in the game.

In this context, military régimes replaced civilian ones in most
countries of Latin America as the late 1960s gave way to the 1970s. Following
an approach termed the "National Security Doctrine"  a strategy
which defined the main enemy of Latin American states as their own leftist
movements  these military governments suppressed reformists, terrorized
democratic forces of almost all stripes and often conducted 'dirty wars' against
their own peoples. At the same time as they stood against any possible trend
towards leftist revolution in the region, they also stymied the development of
democratic forces in general.

The democratization process: 1970s, 80s and 90s

The failure of these governments to do much else but keep the lid on their
societies was soon evident to most observers. By the late 1970s, the slowly
developing counter-trend of armed forces withdrawal 'back to the barracks' had
begun, first in some Andean countries but soon more widely.

The pro-democracy policies of the Carter administration in Washington played
a significant role here. In most countries the military negotiated very
comfortably the abandonment of power. In others, major events precipitated the
move. The Argentine military's fiasco in the Falklands, for example, destroyed
utterly its prestige in the country as a whole and hastened the régime's
collapse. It is important to note, however, that with the sole exception of
Nicaragua's Somoza dictatorship, in no case was the army forced out of power by
democratic forces determined to achieve this at any cost. Instead, public
pressures made military rule merely uncomfortable for the armed forces.

In the 1980s, American strategic objectives under President Reagan made the
retention of military régimes in Central America uncomfortable as well,
and most yielded at least formal power by the middle of the decade. American
pressures also reduced the survivability of the Stroessner régime in
Paraguay and, of course, directly overthrew those of Generals Noriega in Panama
and Cedras in Haiti.

The international environment of the post-cold war world is, however, highly
favourable to democratic development in the area. Washington for a start has
made no secret of its adamant desire to see liberal democracy and capitalism
flourish in the Americas. Indeed, it has not hidden its insistence that any
attempt to benefit from ideas such as the Initiative for the Americas (a
wider-ranging free trade area) must pass through the achievement of democracy at
home.

At the same time, Europe, Japan and Canada have linked their assistance
programs more and more directly to democracy-related criteria, and this has
helped edge the military away from such direct roles in government.

Thus at this time there has been an apparently crowning achievement put in
place. With the fall of the Haitian dictatorship, every country in the Americas
claims democratic forms and objectives. Even Castro's Cuba is careful to insist
that while it aims at a different sort of democracy, one where economic issues
have priority over political, it still calls its system democratic.

Such a generalized situation of democracy must be applauded, as the rule of
law, human rights, multi-party elections, increased transparency, etc., become
the norm. The atmosphere for coups d'état, as Peruvian and Guatemalan
leaders alike have learned, is not a receptive one. There is even talk of an
inter-American security system whose objectives would include the defence of
democratic régimes against their own militaries' occasional temptations
to replace them. But the need for such an arrangement must surely give us pause
about the extent to which democracy is as yet anchored in the political systems
of the Latin American region.

Current obstacles to the process of democratization

Unfortunately, there are many reasons for concern about democratic survival
in Latin America. In many countries, economic, social, political and security
trends are conspiring to reverse the process of the last two decades, and the
threat they pose is a real one.

1) The first of these severe problem areas is that of the failure of a
number of democratic governments to improve the economic conditions in which the
bulk of their people have to live. Whether for good or ill, and whether
accurate or not, the public perception of most Latin Americans is that
democratic governments are supposed to be better than authoritarian régimes
at improving the economic lot ot the people. Political parties under most
military régimes stressed their ability to bring positive economic change
if only the military would step aside.

In many countries, of course, this has happened. A number of Latin American
countries are experiencing sustained growth and progress as judged by
traditional indicators of economic advance. In Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,
Colombia, Peru and El Salvador, for example, there is a clear improvement in
overall economic performance. Other countries, however, are experiencing much
less sustained and trouble-free growth. Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico,
Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay all show many positive signs but also some
troubling negative ones. Still others are seeing very little improvement at
all, or even distinct moves backward: Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras,
Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Thus there is a patchwork of progress and difficulty, rather than a single
picture of progress, as some observers would have us believe. In several
countries, democracy is not delivering the goods of economic improvement which
the public has been led to believe would accompany political reform.

Economic dislocation, caused often by structural adjustment policies and
reactions to globalization, is rampant, with its resulting and increasing
under-employment and unemployment. Virtually all economists agree that the gap
between rich and poor is widening rapidly and dangerously, and that the
much-touted trickle-down effect of economic change is often showing itself
painfully reluctant to appear.

This has frequently resulted in the estallido social phenomenon: the
trend to violent social explosions caused by frustration at changes over which
the population, especially marginalized sectors of it, feel they have no control
and from which they reckon they suffer most. Over and over, riots and looting
have occurred following rises in transport costs, staple food prices, or in
other spheres most important for the poor.

In the absence of large, well-trained and efficient police forces, it is
almost invariably the army that is called in to crush these outbreaks. This
cannot help but reinforce the role of the army in society as a whole as well as
the government's dependence on the institution in time of dire need.

2) A second major issue reaching a crisis stage is that of public and
private corruption. Despite a litany of promises of reform, the incidence
of corruption among officials, politicians, judges and other key elements of
society is certainly on the rise. The political parties are especially hard hit
by this trend, which has in many countries all but destroyed the little prestige
and public confidence they might have enjoyed.

In addition, many such parties and individual political leaders seem to the
public to lack completely any idea of a coherent program to take their
respective countries out of crisis. The perception is that the politicians have
only one goal: personal enrichment at the state's expense. The fact that
recently no less than 10 current or former heads of government in Latin America
were under indictment for corruption reinforces this growing public perception
of rampant corruption at all levels.

The result is a growth in calls for a return to military rule in certain
countries, or at least massive reform of the system. The context is one of
pubilc derision of the leaders and institutions of democracy and of the
democratic process itself, found wanting in its goal of producing honest,
capable leaders.

3) In addition, there is the massive problem of the region-wide crime
wave. In virtually every country in Latin America, the question of
individual security has become crucial. Poll after poll shows that Latin
Americans feel insecure in their cities, essentially because of the spiralling
crime rate. While no doubt exaggerated by some in countries where crime has
historically been very low, such as Costa Rica or Honduras, the overwhelming
impression is that one is never safe from crime, even the violent variety.

Demands for the government to do something, and calls for a return to law
and order, are generalized and mounting in tone. Everywhere the efficiency of
the new democratic states in dealing with crime is considered a benchmark of
their success in areas of truly vital concern. Here again the pressures on
governments to appear to be doing something meaningful are great and increasing.
Under such circumstances, even the most democratic of governments is searching
for ways to show that it is taking the problem seriously.

It is here that the absence of sizeable, uncorrupted, well-trained and
efficient police forces is most noted. Latin American civilian police forces
are typically small, corrupt (perhaps not surprisingly, given their derisory
rates of pay), poorly trained and equipped, and far from efficient. Little
wonder they are unable to deal with the crime wave, especially in its current,
often well organized and armed.

Under such circumstances, significant elements of the public in some
countries call for the military to be used against the criminals. In Rio de
Janeiro, a full-scale military operation to support and relieve the hard-pressed
police has enjoyed widespread popularity, despite the increase in the influence
of the armed forces this implies. In Guatamala, the army has been sent in to
clear out the criminals from several poor neighbourhoods. This it has done with
remarkable skill. But when the military withdraws, the criminals return, causing
huge posters to be raised by the public crying out "Que vuelva el ejército!"
(Let the army return!). This cannot be good for solidifying democracy nor for
establishing effective civilian control of the armed forces.

In El Salvador, the army has recently been used instead of the weak police
force in all manner of strike breaking, anti-kidnapping, crowd control and
related ways. In Colombia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the army is being asked to
do everything from replacing prison guards at overcrowded and dangerous
correctional institutions, to clearing squatters from the land of property
owners. The lack of effective police forces is frequently having a seriously
deleterious effect on democratization efforts, and the negative effects are
heightened by the seemingly uncontrollable crime crisis and its attendant
further loss of confidence in democratic government.

4) Linked to this phenomenon is the massive growth in the drugs and
arms trade. Latin Americans early on in the drug war tended to see the
issue in 'we-they' terms vis-à-vis the United States. While Washington
perceived the problem as essentially one of the suppliers feeding abuse in the
USA, Latin Americans preferred to put the problem in terms of the demand in the
rich North creating a supply in the poor South. In more recent years, the
growth of drug abuse in the cities of Latin America, especially those in the
wealthy Southern Cone, has brought home the need for more effective action to
stamp out the trade. Also striking are the connections between the drug trade
and the traffic in illegal arms. It is no exaggeration to say that a
significant amount of drugs shipped north are paid for by arms shipped south.
The impact on the power of the narcotraficantes is considerable and
their ability to defy national political authority increases as a consequence of
these improved arms. In addition, the high levels of armaments constitute a
threat to the effective political control of the state in general, a point not
lost on guerrilla and terrorist movements as well.

Here again, the state and the civilian police have had little success in
curbing these activities, a failure which again undermines the confidence of the
public. The military is thus increasingly brought in to support the police.
And the danger grows of public support for democracy dissipating even further in
a context of calls for more law and order.

Potential security implications for Canada

What are the security implications of this situation for Canada? The first
is the general one of instability in a region of growing importance to this
country: Canada is a trading country, and poor unstable countries do not make
good customers; prosperous and stable countries do. Trade with Latin America is
growing dramatically, especially with Mexico, but also with Brazil, Chile and
many other regional states. In addition, and very importantly, the Latin
American region is the only region of the world where the percentage of Canadian
exports coming from high-tech fields is actually growing. The opposite is
happening in our trade with Europe and the United States, and even with Asia.
Thus the Latin American connection is an important one for us.

Canadian investment is also important in the region, and of course
investment is highly sensitive to instability. But the impact on Canadian
political linkages with the region may prove even more of consequence for us.

With the Free Trade Area with the United States, then NAFTA with that
country and Mexico, and now the expansion of the arrangement to include Chile,
it is clear that Canada has chosen its region in an increasingly bloc-oriented
world. This has not been a pleasant experience, and the requirement to choose a
bloc has always been considered a nightmare to be avoided at all costs by
successive Canadian governments of all political stripes. Not diversifying our
trade, investment and political links away from the USA toward Europe and Asia
in particular, has meant that the choice of joining the Americas as a full
partner could no longer be avoided.

Thus, in surely one of the most crucial decisions of Canadian history, this
country has now become 'American' in the sense of participating completely in
the life of this hemisphere as our rightful place. The implications of this
decision are enormous. For a start, the creation of a hemispheric community in
which Canada and Canadians can feel comfortable is a huge challenge and one
depending very much on whether our new partners can successfully establish their
democracies. It is inconceivable that Canada could stay in a community of
American states which was not democratic. Indeed, the accession formula, an
essentially Canadian invention, to all intents and purposes precludes
dictatorships from membership.

More specifically, instability, poverty and inequities in Latin America
produce refugees or illegal immigrants. Cuban, Central American, Peruvian and
Haitian recent events have shown that it is not possible for Canada to isolate
itself from the immigration effects of crises in this hemisphere. Only a
stable, prosperous and probably democratic Latin America can head off these
problems. In this regard, United States' concerns about Latin America are also
growing. The USA feels vulnerable to events in Latin America, especially in
Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean and Central America. Much
of this concern is couched in security terms, and Canadians are well aware that
what the USA considers a security issue becomes ipso facto a security
concern for Canada. This does not mean we feel the same way, but this does
nothing to change its arrival on our security agenda.

As has been shown repeatedly in the last half-dozen years, Washington is
also tempted to use its most impressive current asset  its unquestioned
and unchallenged military might  when it feels worried about Latin
American issues. Here again, there are security aspects to the growing bloc-ism
of the Americas.

In the drugs issue as well, there are security concerns for Canada. While
Canada has not tended to see the drug trade in security terms, preferring to
favour medical, social and educational means to deal with the problem, Ottawa
does have some security commitments on this matter. It has not proven possible
to bring the drug trade under control. Most of our inter-American partners now
define drugs as a security issue properly dealt with, at least in part, by
military force. Indeed, the USA and Mexico have both declared this scourge the
No.1 security threat.

Finally, there is the question of civil-military relations under NAFTA and
AFTA, the latter being one of the potential acronyms for an eventual
all-Americas free trade area. For Canada, there must not be a return to the
well-known Latin American cycle of rotating civilian democratic and military
autocratic régimes. As mentioned, NAFTA cannot accept dictatorial régimes
if Canada is to remain in it. And in the new world of blocs, rising
protectionism and increasingly competitive relations between these economic (and
in many ways political) behemoths, Canada cannot avoid being part of NAFTA. The
expansion to an AFTA is occurring at the same time as several democratic
governments are in difficulty staying afloat or at least in their efforts to
anchor democratic practices. It may well be that we are in a race against time
where this issue is concerned.

Conclusion

As mentioned, Canada needs the partnership with Latin America for wide
diplomatic and economic goals, several of which have significant security
dimensions. A lost battle in the area of democratic sustainability could spell
the end for Ottawa's hopes for such a profitable relationship, the only one
offering itself in the world of blocs which faces us.

In order to establish themselves on the firm footing discussed here, Latin
American democracies must begin to deliver on promises of social and economic
progress. If this is done, as it is being done in several countries of the
region, the positive effects on democratic trends will be massive. But if it
remains an elusive goal, and disorder spreads, Canada may find itself in bed
with countries whose governments are no longer democratic, a tragedy for those
states but potentially one for this country as well.

The views expressed herein are those of the author, who may be contacted by
writing to :